As you may have seen on our forums and elsewhere on the web, element14 customers have been getting delivery date emails today. Jenny has sent us this, to let you know what’s going on if your email hasn’t dropped into your inbox yet:

Delivery update from element14

We’re excited to report that our next shipment of 4,000 Raspberry Pi’s has now left our manufacturers in Asia and will be on their way to customers next week! We have a further 12,000 due to arrive with us by the third week of May and regular volume shipments thereafter .

By early next week all 110,000 customers who have ordered with element14, wherever they are in the world, will receive a confirmed delivery date ( which, as previously communicated, will be no later than the end of June for those who ordered before April 18th) .

Also, over the next 5 days, we will invite the 70,000 hopeful customers who have already registered their interest in the Raspberry Pi to place their orders, with delivery expected in July/August, dependent on the place of that order in the queue.

New registrations of interest received from today will now need to wait a little longer for their confirmation until we have updated production and delivery information from our manufacturers. This is to avoid confusion and ensure that we are able to give new customers accurate delivery information when they place their orders.

Thank you again for your patience – with volume manufacture now well underway we hope that we will shortly be able to lift the “one per customer” order limitation on new orders also and will communicate as soon as we are able to do so.

I wonder how the queue system works. I ordered 6 minutes after the announcement, and after a while got this in a mail from Farnell:
“Farnell element14 will deliver your Pi to you around mid-April. You are one of the first people in the world who will get their hands on a Raspberry Pi Model B. Congratulations.”

Yet, someone that ordered 49 minutes after the announcement has already recieved their RPI. How is that possible if there is a “First come, first serve” system? My order # is 16451716.

I really think its time to give this a rest. Yes, there were problems with the first few hours or ordering due to the massive overload of the servers which has caused great difficulties in sorting order priorities etc. Some people are, indeed, going to come of worse than others. But that worse is simply a delay in when you get your device. It’s not the end of the world. It seem that people are unaware of the massive efforts that Farnell are going to here to sort things out. They deserve a bit of slack.

Jenny has already very openly and courteously explained what happened and what went wrong. (http://www.raspberrypi.org/archives/1081#comments). And she has been responding to individual queries world-wide, including mine, which must have been extremely time-consuming.

“So – life is disappointing? Forget it!
We have no troubles here! Here life is beautiful…
The girls are beautiful… even JamesH is beautiful!”

Greg – We have said a number of times it wasn’t perfect. We have never experienced anything like the early days of Raspberry Pi before – and i’ve seen Glenn at RS say the same. You know what happened to the websites – there were some probelems with using credit cards in some countries on day 1, pricing queries and with 48 websites globally on different timezones and hundreds of sales people taking orders it wasn’t perfect. The dates we’ve given will hold – we dont have spare capacity to reshuffle the backlog so just one change creates a domino effect. I apologise that you think we messed up and are hiding the fact – we have tried to communicate as honestly as we can. If its any reassurance I can tell you that production is going well and so the date you have is a date we can rely on.

@greg/yvind: we’re talking about a $35 computer… not something critical like a battery for your pacemaker… get over it, constantly whining and bitching about it’s not going to fix anything, sit back, be patient and enjoy the ride.

Is anyone else confused as to why it seems that those who “registered an interest”, the only option really available for some time, seem to have got pushed to the back? I awaited my invite to order until it finally sounded like “registering my interest” had actually gotten me absolutely nothing.

I still have my invite to make an order from Newark/element14 e-mail and the link in it still works to let me make an order. I’m wondering if someone else used the same link it would let them order too? It also appears that it would let me order again. I would love for someone to try it but I’m not about to publish the link here and screw things up for everyone else in the wait queue. If anyone tries it and has the ‘desired’ result it would be interesting to know.

No-one else can use your link, some people have used various methods to place more than one order and we’ve then had to cancel one. We don’t want to be mean but made an agreement with RPI that we wouldn’t take bulk orders until we’d satisfied the huge demand by individuals. With our current order backlog scheduled now and production planned that will enable us to start inviting the next trenche of registrants to order we are hoping to lift the “one per” restriction pretty soon

If only RS Components valued their customers in the same way. Well done Element 14 / Farnell. I have passed a copy of your announcement on to RS with some pithy comments. At least I thought they were pithy, lets hope their lawyers …..

I agree with your comments about Newark/element14. I registered with RS at the same time that I did with Newark and also and haven’t heard back anything from RS but Newark has already taken my order. RS seems to need some instruction related to customer relations.

On the other hand they took my wish to order the same day unlike farnell who’s representative asked me to send it by email just to send me a form letter eight hours later saying i was shit out of luck and had to reorder the day after.
Their followup has been worse even though information have been coming from them while farnell seem to have gotten on the ball at least in some parts

Thanks to Sébastien, I took a look at my spam folder. It appears that I have been receiving periodic updates from RS as well. There I was, thinking they had lost interest in me as a customer. Turns out they just have difficulty getting mail past the google mail spam filter. I really need to check that spam folder more often…

whatever the system says you will only be charged for one, same will apply to people who ordered at an old (higher ) press. This too will be corrected at point of shipment when your card is actually charged

I had the same message from RS. Assuming their production schedule is much the same as Farnell’s I would expect the flow of volume production and orders to be much the same. My position on the queue is probably closer to 6:30 than 6:01 so I expect to be in the third batch or thereabouts to be offered the option to order. If you add up the numbers in the Farnell announcement, they have 16,000 in the pipeline including 4,000 of the original 10,000 so that means they are starting to get new production under way.

You SHOULD be in the queue with a delivery date of before “week of may 21st”. I know of “3 PM” -> may 21st.
You should have gotten an Email by now, have you checked your spam folder?
Otherwise Jenny will want to hear your order number, as she’s indicated to others above…..

Jenny, could you check on my order? I have not heard a thing since I placed it, and when asking via email they said there would be a shipping update “next week”. That was two weeks ago. I also checked my Spam folder, and there’s nothing. The order was placed with export.farnell.com and it’s identified with “05 March, 2012 ” “Customer PO: 05/03/2012 22:30”

Jenny, the lack of an order number anywhere was one of the reasons I’m a bit nervous. I did get an email back from Alison at Farnell with the reference number, 1661-0322 , and an expected ship date in June. Not thrilled to have to wait that long, but such is life :-)

Jenny,
Thanks for looking into it! Yes, I tried to order on that fateful and exciting night when everyone else were also pounding the living daylights out of your servers. I managed to get pretty far on export.farnell.com, to the point of getting the Pi in my shopping cart before giving up. The main site at the time wasn’t even responding. Some days later I went back and still had it in my cart, and was able to submit it.

Today was a good day.
E-mail from Farnell telling that my Pi will ship around May 7
E-mail from RS telling that i can soon place an order there too (i won’t hoard 2 RPis, if i get the one from RS before the end of “one per person” limit, i will give-it to a friend)
Parcel with boards from Olimex arrived – now i have something to do until the Pi arrives.

Farnell/inOne are using a slightly different system to get you your updates. Normally, when something isn’t in stock, they just order, and have the next batch come in “week XXX”. And then they have stock again. This is entirely different: There is a backlog that cannot be fulfilled with “the next shipment”.
So their normal system will disagree a bit with the actual date/time mentioned in the Emails.
Consider what their normal ordering system says a “worst case”.

Chris and Jim, Newark’s update emails are going out over the weekend and into the early part of next week. The august date in the system was a ‘placeholder’ while we sorted out production and accurate delivery dates (you could argue tbc would have been better!). i hope you get an accurate update by early next week…if not will need your order numbers! have a good weekend

Thanks a lot for these updates, as the Hong Kong element14 people have been quiet as a fish, and pretty clueless when prodded. The last estimation date I *PRIED* out of them was for September (!)
Hope to get some news “by early next week” :)

Hi Jenny, sorry for the late answer
My order confirmation number is 14426499
The only answer I could get as of last week was a laconic “We are still confirming the actual lead-time of the item. And, we will update it to you when we get it.” -_-
Thanks a lot for your help!

ps….its only july/august for new orders , however once all of those who’ve registered have ordered this could push production capacity and mean it will be september. If you have an order with us and it was placed before april 18th you will get your pi before end of June/early july.

I got an email saying my pi would be coming before the end of June but with no date. I ordered on feb the 9th because I wast waiting for the bundles (but got inpatient) can you give me a rough date eg. The middle of june
Thanks

I ordered my R-pi from Element14 India on 4th March. But I didn’t get any update mail from element14 recently and the order status is still ‘Back Order’… :( Guess i have to wait for some more days. Its really making me go nuts since I’ve been into R-pi from last November. Anyway, its worth a wait..!!

I suspect that once you lift the one per customer restriction you’ll have another surge of orders from people who’ve got one under the restricted roll-out but would really like to buy 10 (more?).
It could help you gauge the numbers and plan production if there was a register interest page with a Qty box – if qty > 1 only invite to order after the restriction is lifted?

I have a slightly different problem, the debit card details I gave Farnell on the 29th Feb, expires on Monday (30th April), but I don’t believe payment has yet been taken form my account.
I now have a delivery date confirmed of week commencing 21st May, if payment is not processed by Monday however, how do I get my new card details to Farnell as there seems to be no way to do this on the website?

Our UK and Ireland team have identified over 300 card failures, mostly due to card expiry date. They are contacting people to get new details. We cant do this via the web due to the strict terms of PCI compliance for securely handling credit cards. Typically we need order references to resolve this problem but someone in our finance team has painstakingly trawled the list of 300 names and found you (JDF?) as your user name here makes you easy to identify. She has your phone number from the order and will make contact

It is still showing back ordered, and I also have a billing question relating to the above problem.

When I first ordered it, I used a debit card that I no longer have and need to update that billing info (I hope this doesn’t lose my position or has prevented me from getting an update since that card doesn’t exist anymore)

I emailed [email protected] almost 2 weeks ago but still haven’t received any response.

With all the various delays I have yet to receive any email from Newark.ca other than two contest emails. So I guess they’ve got my email address.

I ordered Day 1 and I hate to complain but the ongoing lack of information from Newark regarding my order with all the changes in delivery dates is extremely frustrating. I guess I’m also waiting until Monday to see if I get a lucky email.

It’s too bad you have to continuously sift through the forums to keep up with what’s going on with Newark/Element14. Don’t get me wrong…the forums are great, info from Newark/Element14 not so much.

Got my email Friday lunchtime.
Delivery expected W/C 7/5.
My order No. was 16457XXX, at 08:30+, after 2 1/2 hours of trying. Presumably, the start of my TCP/IP connection was the key in allocating my place in the queue.
So far, according to media reports, only 2,000 have actually shipped, to date.
From my reckoning, I will be getting one of the remaining 8,000 from the original batch, (as the latest news from the Farnell website states their next delivery is “next week”) minus buckshee press/PR/friends etc. Not that that’s a problem. WTH, it’s a mega cheap PC…
I am seeding the latest Debian, Arch, and locally compiled OpenElec torrents…
BIG thanks to Eben, Liz, Pete, Russell, James, Liam, and the multitude of unknown others who have made this wonderful dream a reality.
I am so chuffed to be in at the start of something that I’m sure will be the spark that lights the flame for this generation of “could be” programmers.
Nerds of the world, rise up!

updates are sent by email from all group companies. For anyone who is confused element14, farnell, newark, cpc, premier farnell…….we’re all one group. As registration etc is via our element14 community and as all busineses except cpc are dual branded as element14 we’ve tried to use element14 to be easier…….obviously failed! :(

So then, i’ve been told i’ll be getting mine around the 7th of may, does this mean mine is one of the 4000 your getting next week? if so is this 4000 part of the original 10000 that the foundation had manufactured?

Really no mystery here. The initial batch commissioned was for 10,000. the first 2,000 made by Raspberry Pi, the remaining 8000 by RS and element14 (4,000 of each). I can confirm that element14’s 4000 have been received and will be shipping out by end of business tonight so anyone with an order date of w/c 7th may is coming from that batch. The 8000 were delayed whilel we all waited to see if the Compliance testing necessitated hardware changes – it didnt so as soon as the compliance paperwork was finalised manufacturing continued. The pcb’s had already been received so the compliance markings will be the same in this next shipment as for the first 2000. From here on in we’re on our own ! Our next shipment will be for 12,000 and then we have another, even larger shipment at month end and 3 more volume shipments before the end of June……110,000 due to us before the end of June and all committed to people like you who’re keen to get their hands on them! Hope this clears up the mystery!

Why can not shops make a pre-order, and on this money make boards ?!
You have about will say about 25-75k people who will pay you now, but not after 4-6 months, why ? it simple ! SoC’s nowadays has a very short live-time, for example Broadcom BCM2835 is slower than OMAP4430 (used in Samsung Galaxy S2, Kindle Fire for example). So after 6 months somebody like http://www.pandaboard.org simple develop product on omap5 (much faster than current products), and part of your customers will simple buy arduino for simple tasks, and other mobile dev bords for development.

Hi, I pre-ordered from Farnell a few weeks ago when I received the email link but have had no confirmation that the order was successful, should I have got an email then or just when I’ve been given a delivery date. Would have thought I’d at least get a order reference.

Just ordered again but this time used Chrome instead of Firefox and it gave me a page with order number. Should have thought of that earlier as Firefox has been playing up recently, it wouldn’t let me post on this blog either and I had to use Chrome.
Just means that I’m at the back of the queue now ;o(

I have now, but didn’t get anything after I first placed my order after getting the email saying I could pre-order. Think it was a browser thing, although this time I used a different card as the one I used first time will expire at the end of May.

Thank’s for all the trouble you’re going to for us to sort things out.

Still no email from element14/Newark about my order, which has a ship to date of end of Aug. But then again there has been so many posts about what the correct ETA, stock, what is manufactured what is not, what has been held back because of CE marks, what is now shipping, who is getting theirs… I’m a big confused

If there is an alternative I will go for it. Its really unfair and guess i have right to protest.
I ordered few hours after and my friends/colleagues after few days. All have received this prepayment offers but me.

It sounds like your registration of interest may not have been successful – would need your full name, country and/or email address to check for you…..perhaps one of the kind moderators here would help.

My order on February 29 to Newark still shows an Expected Ship Date of August 15. It also still shows the $20 Handling Fee that was supposed to be removed. Have never heard from them since the order, nor an update email that was to be received in the last few days. Starting to wonder if I’ll ever get one… :P

Just got my first email from Newark. My Pi is in the order they expect to receive May 29th. So I guess June would be a good ETA.
On another note, just ordered a Motorola lapdock to tie this into. Interested to see if that’s been done yet.

When I first ordered it, I used a debit card that I no longer have and need to update that billing info (I hope this doesn’t lose my position or has prevented me from getting an update since that card doesn’t exist anymore)

I emailed [email protected] almost 2 weeks ago but still haven’t received any response.

Its due to reach you by 26/5/12…its in the batch of 12,000 due to show up this week. the team will be contacting anyone whose card has expired or is refused but will need to speak to you by phone to take the change of card. I have sent them your details

I have been VERY patient and am not aiming to make a big fuss, but I placed my order on day one, and now received a predicted shipping date of July 9th, whereas this news post says mine should be DELIVERED by the end of June. Up until this week, my ship date was August 16th, but it has just shifted to this new date.

I originally ordered on Feb 29th from Farnell Austria, around 11am, with order number 16461589.

Then in April I received an email from Farnell inviting me to order the Pi, so I clicked on that again just to be sure, but this created a second order (17170063).

Now today I got a confirmation for that second order with a delivery date of week 36!

Could you please check into that and see that I get my first order delivered (which should put me much closer to delivery).. the second one could be cancelled if there is a problem with both in the system, or just put on backorder until volume distribution is available (doesn’t really matter to me what happens to the April order).

I would just like to get my first order (number 16461589) processed according to the time/order it was placed.

Jenny, you said if not heard from Element 14 on Monday to let you know the order number?? Mine was 352496, ordered on March 30, 2012. mine still says August 16, 2012 and no I have not heard from Newark/ element 14 ( as it should be approaching midnight there I would assume Monday is almost over for them )

except for the welcome email from farnell, I haven’t received any email regarding delivery dates.

I ordered on launch date 29/02/2012 18:40 , (New Zealand time?)but haven’t received any email about delivery dates. People who ordered days after me, has already received their emails with delivery dates. can someone please help. here’s my order number, 13826423 . I can’t get anything from Farnell NZ & Australia as they kept on saying, “… early next week blah blah blah…”

Apologies – not sure what’s happened as we have this as a live part. Someone is looking into it now and will confirm, hopefully with reassuring news – if not it is our error and we will fix. I will revert asap

Still no email for me either. Ordered in Canada on March 4 and received my confirmation email with Purchase Order #910081569. Received two emails in early April about the survey not being spam. Hopefully get something soon :)

Got my email today
We’re excited to inform you that your Raspberry Pi will be delivered in an upcoming shipment beginning the week of June 29th . We will have your firm delivery date, after manufacturer confirmations are made, on Newark.com

Asi have said many times the Newqark system isnt updating and theAugust dates were just placeholders. They are fixing the problem but ignore the august date. You will receive by end June – if you give me your order number i will get you a better and more accurate date

I am frankly getting fed up with this [Liz edit – language!] about getting your R Pi based on when you ordered it. I’m in NZ and ordered mine several hours before my friend in the UK. He will be getting his this week whereas mine will be shipped to me sometime after the 28/5.

We work in 3 regions and so Asia, Europe and the USA are each managing their own backlog – there is no conspiracy at work, as I said before the allocation of Pi’s has been done on a first come first served basis to the best of our ability but its not been perfect. In the early days the web struggled to cope, some businesses had price queries that needed to be resolved. Honestly it wasnt perfect but the good news is we have really high volumes coming through now. I’m sorry your frustrated and disappointed but your Pi will be on its way soon – and the delivery date is one you can rely on.

No. Effing. Way. Just received an email from Newark|Element14 stating “We’re excited to inform you that your Raspberry Pi will be delivered in an upcoming shipment beginning the week of June 18th.” What do I do, what do I do? Should I offer it dinner? What am I going to wear? Maybe I’ll just act all chill and go “Hey, wassup” when it shows up at my doorstep.

i still have not received any details regarding shipment from element14 australia.
if you could look into it, that would be greatly appreciated.

i also noted on the site: ‘Shipments will be made strictly in the order that commitments were received within each region– Europe, Asia, and the Americas.’
does this mean that certain regions will be given preference?
or that an order made on 3rd march in the united states may be received later than an order made on the 5th march in another region?

Takaya – can you give me your email or order number please. The order code above is actually the part number and from the date and time we can’t accurately track your order. Sorry for more questions but my colleague in Australia is waiting to help you as soon as we get the right info to her……

element14 called to say that the credit card I had used had been declined. Having made the purchase in March, my friend had assumed the money had been dedited from his account and transferred the funds to another account. I have since asked him to leave the money in the correct account, and had element14 reprocess the transaction.

Unfortunately element14 were still unable to offer me an expected shipping date.

There’s clearly something wrong with the Newark ordering process. I placed my order on the 2nd of March (registered interest as soon as they opened up orders too), yet i’m in one of the last shipping groups (June 18th). I have a friend who placed his order after I did, and is in the May 29th shipping group. Only difference, is that I didn’t have a Newark account ahead of time, and he did. I have no choice but to wait, but clearly they’ve lost their order arrangement, and won’t admit it.

From what I can tell there are an immense amount of variables Farnell has used to make sure everyone will get their pis in a fair and equitable manner, but if you feel that this is indeed the case, it’s something you should bring up on their forums and support team ;-)

Yes, Already gone down that avenue to no avail. It seems their own support representatives are ill-equipped to answer any questions of this sort.

From a Newark support rep:

sorry don’t have anyone to refer you to. Whoever knows that info is not in the US and we get the information when its posted on the web… http://www.element14.com/community/groups/raspberry-pi/blog/2012/04
AND
I see where you’re coming from unfortunately we have no way of knowing where you fall in that order.. and they’re not going to tell us

Philip – I am appalled and embarrassed by that response so firstly a huge apology. It has gone to the contact centre manager with a request for an URGENT team briefing. This person is incorrect and I wholeheartedly apologise (if you have their name or a copy of the email I would dearly like to receive it!) so that I can give them a full update personally. As posted elsewhere we really are trying to honour first come first served but its not been perfect – wouldn’t pretend it has. We have nothing to gain by prioritising some over others but if its any small consolation I can tell you that our full manufacturing schedule is confirmed, components purchased and production going well, so I hope we can restore your faith. We’re not going to re-order the backlog any further – more delivery dates, more changes for everyone so the dates given will be the dates we ship on. Once again apologies for the terribel support you received – thank you for flagging it.

Aditsu – Apologies for the delay but as you may be aware there has been a couple of days of holidays in Singapore this week and that’s who I needed to contact to get the delivery information. I am pleased to confirm your Pi will arrive during the week of 28th May. Our system shows you were sent an email so might be we have a slight error in the email address…..on the last mass mail-out something like 7% of addresses bounced back as undeliverable which probably explains a few of the issues being raised.

Thanks for the update. The system is still not showing a delivery date, just “back order”. Also there’s no error in the email address, I even received some promotional emails from time to time (and unsubscribed from those). Either the notification wasn’t sent, or the email bounced for some other reason (maybe too many emails going to that provider?)
Anyway, looking forward to receiving the Pi, and hope there won’t be any more delays. Thank you.

Jenny: Help Please!
After patiently waiting for my email update since last weekend, I became antsy and decided to check my order status as I have done before. Now neither the forum or Newark/element 14 even recognizes me as a member (this was a pre-existing Newark account).

Can you check on this please? I will even send chocolate!
From various registration and order emails:
Order Reference Number: 945734328 Date: 3∕26∕12 8:55AM
Order Number: 317492
Account Number: 395462/001
Name: fredrenner

Jenny, An update.
I just received an email saying my delivery will be scheduled sometime after June 29.
Also, I am again able to log into Newark.com.
Don’t know if you did this or not but you still deserve the chocolate.
Fred

*Update* Our next shipment of 4000 Raspberry Pi’s have safely arrived and will all be shipped out to customers (globally) by end of today so people expecting delivery w/c 7th may….they’re on their way………….

On 27th April: I got an email telling me that “Having successfully passed its CE compliance testing, we can now confirm that your Raspberry Pi will be delivered by the end of June”
Farnell was supposed to give us a confirmed, and more precise delivery date early this week, but I still haven’t received anything yet… Is it normal ? Thanks

I ordered on 8:02 launch day, and haven’t received any updates since february. I sent an email to Liz on monday, asking her to forward my details to you, but I never heard anything back. I also emailed [email protected] yesterday, still nothing. And yes, I do check my spam-folder regularly.
Could this be a problem with my email provider? As I said, I received updates (order confirmation) in February, so everything seemed OK back then.
—
~egilhh

Liz – did forward your message to me on Monday and my apologies for slow reply. I have been somewhat deluged with rasp Pi delivery questions, as have the teams I am getting the answers from. Please bear with us

Thanks, that’s good to know.
It was getting more and more frustrating to not receive any updates at all, and not even knowing if my email was borked somehow. Now I’ll just crawl back into my shell and eagerly await any info you can give me.
:)
—
~egilhh

Thank you very much for the update. It is odd how I received the first couple of updates in March but not the last one, as you say it is stuck somewhere in the internet. Not a problem anyway, the date definitely makes up for that.

The customer service you are providing here is excellent, can’t ask for anything more.

Message to Christoph (16452665) – sorry but i can no longer find your original post. Team have located your order. email update sent to the adress we are holding for you on the system on 27/4 but shows as unopened still so possibly has never reached you. Your Raspberry Pi will be delivered 14th may

great News :-) thank you Jenny. That’s what i’d like to hear ;-)
No Problem, so many posts, I am often confused ;-)
I checked my mailadresse in your system, it is right, although Mails have not reached me…

Doesn’t matter, I will get one ;-) soon THAT is good … everything else isn’t important.

Great News!
Your Raspberry Pi is coming very soon and you can now get 15%* off on all Pi accessories

Dear Chris,

We’re excited to inform you that your Raspberry Pi will be delivered in an upcoming shipment beginning the week of June 29th . We will have your firm delivery date, after manufacturer confirmations are made, on Newark.com. If you don’t have all the accessories you need for your Raspberry Pi, please take advantage of this 15% off coupon on your next purchase from Newark.com.
Please Note: The delivery date reflected in your order history on canada.newark.com will not update until stock is received in our warehouses. The delivery date shown in this email is the most accurate delivery date we have for your order.
Simply add all your accessories to your cart and then enter this voucher at checkout to receive your discount: RASPBERRYC

message for ahnlak – sorry can’t find your original post but you said…….I think i’ve gor a pre-order but instead of a real number i have one with an ORP prefix,….(sic)…. am I screwed?”. Good news, you’re not screwed, we have your order and you’re due to receive the week of 25th June….its safely in the system

I’m going to sound like a suck-up here :). However. I know that people are having problems, I know that people are frustrated and I know that lots of people really, really want to get their hands on their Rasberry Pi. But amidst all this Jenny has provided a level of customer service that I, personally, have never seen before. Unfailingly helpful and patient and polite in what is often a thankless task. So I personally would like to say a huge thank you. Thanks Jenny!

Actually not, I was just guessing *why* people are frustrated. To make my point clear, it’s more than just impatience to ask for a confirmation, it’s to clearify if a preorder went under and another one has to be set.

Thank you Scep – I read these comments (and the emails I get sent to forward) and wince when I imagine poor Jenny dealing with some of them. We think Jenny’s going well above and beyond, and is doing a superb job; we’re extremely grateful to her.

After not receiving any more information on my order from 31st March I contacted Farnell support and afterwards received a complete order confirmation, but it states 10/09/2012 as expected delivery date… :(
The order reference # is ORP002315.
Would you mind checking into this?

Thanks a lot for the work you are putting into all the support you are giving here.

Thomas, Ryan< Alfredo, Niek, Sven and others – have noted your queries. In case you're not aware its a public holiday in UK on monday so won't be able to get these to the people who actually do the work and have the answers until tuesday morning so will revert asap but please dont think ignoring you.

Jenny,
I’m still waiting to receive my delivery e-mail. Order Ref# 16456550 29/02/2012 08:32am. I ordered it on the export site. No, I don’t expect to see my RPi tomorrow… but I would like to know when I can expect it… :) Btw, Thanks for such great service! :)

Hi Jenny.
First off, thankyou for providing the best customer support I have ever witnessed. You are truly a saint!
However, have not received an email with a delivery date? Could I trouble you with one more order number from the UK…16852940
KCCO
Ben

By early next week all 110,000 customers who have ordered with element14, wherever they are in the world, will receive a confirmed delivery date ( which, as previously communicated, will be no later than the end of June for those who ordered before April 18th) . ????????????????????????/

I’m in China, I ordered with cn.element14 on March 15th , and these is no confirmed date now. Why? When can I get the my Pi ?

I haven’t news about my PI and I ordered it very soon… 1 March in Newark :( Immensely frustrated… No email yet, and they said 27 april that we would receive an update the first week in may, but no news.

Order Confirmation Number 169772
Date Order Was Placed : 3/1/12 12:25 AM

Jenny can you check please this order 16596915? I have received the confirmation by I. Sozzi (Farnell Italia) but I haven’t received any news or update about my order. Some friends of mine have told me they have received by Farnell an update by email but I have received nothing.
Thank you.

I came back to see if you had found any information about my order, but I no longer see my original post. In any case, were you able to determine my order status? I placed my order within the first couple of hours on launch day, and I still haven’t received a shipping confirmation.

Hi Jenny
I ordered on 4th of March at 22:06, order conformation no 16564003
Is there any chance you could advise me of a delivery date,as I haven’t heard anything.Your doing a fantastic job of keeping people infomed,thank-you
Grahame

“Dear TheMonkeyKing,
We’re excited to inform you that your Raspberry Pi will be delivered in an upcoming shipment beginning the week of June 18th. We will have your firm delivery date, after manufacturer confirmations are made, on Newark.com. If you don’t have all the accessories you need for your Raspberry Pi, please take advantage of this 15% off coupon on your next purchase from Newark.com.”
(Note: 15% off orders of $75 USD or more, only)

Now if this is true, it will be 80+ business days since my March 2 order, which I’m still pretty miffed at but there is nothing for me to do except cry over spilled Pi. From RS however, I only receive update emails telling me they’ve let another 4000 or so people order the Pi and by the way, thanks for the patience. I put my name down for both companies on Day 0 but it has been only Element14 who has actually allowed me to order one.

While the wait is frustrating, I am very happy with the way I am being informed by Element14/Newark.

[My order date: March 2; Order Confirmation Number 184xxx; US resident]

My order number is 189860. I ordered from Newark on the 3rd of March, and have still not received a release date. Based on what others have said, I do not think I will get my pi until late June, so I am not terribly anxious to learn the date. I am mostly concerened if the order got lost or corrupted somewhere.

Also, I really should thank everyone at RPF and Newark. I don’t hold any grudges for the release debacle, and I really appreciate the effort made of keeping us informed. Thanks!

I ordered from newark on Mar 6th. Their order status is still showing a “ship date” of Aug 16th. So this has proven absolutely false: …

By early next week all 110,000 customers who have ordered with element14, wherever they are in the world, will receive a confirmed delivery date ( which, as previously communicated, will be no later than the end of June for those who ordered before April 18th) .

Cold you look into my order number 13826062. I ordered on feb 29th and have heard nothing. I called your NZ 0800 number last week and they told me it would be at least TWO MONTHS before they could give me an update. Please tell me that isn’t true?

I place my order initally on March 3rd. My PO# is 205368. I have not received an email and my delivery date is still showing August 16th. The people with customer service are of little help. Based on the information above, I should have recieved a confirmed delivery date. I have not received any correspondence. Can you give me any information. A friend of mine ordered through RS Component last week and has already received his……..

Its due to be with you by June 17th. RS are managing the order backlog slightly differently and i believe asking people to order when stock arrives but i am sure your friend has been on the ‘waiting list’ as long. RS have a huge list of people wanting them too as Jo and others have updated.

Jenny can you check please this order 16596915? I have received the confirmation by I. Sozzi (Farnell Italia) but I haven’t received any news or update about my order. Some friends of mine have told me they have received by Farnell an update by email but I have received nothing.
Thank you.

Jenny, could you please check on newark.com order/PO number 910842659 confirmation number 169078. I’m in the US. I haven’t received any email from Newark indicating my expected ship date, and the web site still shows Aug 16th (or sometimes 15th). Thanks.

I dont have the full usa list currently so will have to wait for tomorrow but i will do then. I keep saying this and I know its not helpful but Newarks system is wrong and its really not worth checking there right now. I know that’s unimpressive and we’re trying to fix it – its making it hard for our internal and ‘chat’ teams to answer queries too. The newark team understand the frustration its causing and are doing everything they can to fix it. We just want to be honest, however I know who has the master list of orders and she has been helping me update here…..so will check and revert asap. We have our largest shipments yet arriving…..12,000 mid May, over 30000 end may and then 3 more large deliveries in the first few weeks of June so fully believe we will meet the commitment that “all orders placed by April 18th will be delivered by end June”…………so bear with us

I dont see 16455860, could it be 16455680? That order is being shipped to a customer in the USA from the UK this weekend and is due to arrive next weekend. Please reconfirm your order number and let me know. thanks

Thank you for ordering via the Farnell web site.
Your order has been given the following Farnell order reference number: 16455860.
Please refer to this number if you contact Farnell regarding your order.”

Hi. I ordered march 27th, and I was just wondering what m expected ship date will be. I haven’t recieved my email yet. My Customer Order Reference Number is : 946837914. Any help would be great. Thanks.

Knuit, Doug, Vrmithrax – saw your comments on the RS post, if you want to leave me your order numbers here would be happy to check.
Unfortunately the newark systems are not up to date – newark are trying to fix the problem. I realise this is most unhelpful but with 42000 arriving in msay and 3 large shipments in June we are well on track to deliver our first 110,000 to those who ordered by April 18th before the end of June.

Hi Jenny
I ordered on 4th of March at 22:06, order conformation no 16564003
Is there any chance you could advise me of a delivery date,as I haven’t heard anything.Your doing a fantastic job of keeping people infomed,thank-you
Grahame

Firstly, Congratulations on your patience and professionalism in all the responses. I am loathed to add to your workload, and thought for a long time before posting this message.

Like everyone else, I am very eager to get my piece of pi, and know that i will have to wait. But it would be nice to get an update on the current order status.

i recieved the email advising delivery before the end of june – which i am optimistically assuming is a worse case scenario considering i managed to order at 8:14 on pi day (after 2 hours of site reloading!!)

Thanks again for all you are doing – it is really appreciated and I hope your bosses recognise the extra effort you are going to.

A couple of other things
1. I dont remember which credit card i used to order, but one of my cards has since been cancelled due to internet fraud by the bank. So there is a chance it will fail authorisation. I assume i will get a call for new details.
2. farnell France automatically added €12 delivery charge to the order, totalling €53 – is this what i will pay or will this be corrected as per the earlier review of pricing when payment is taken?

I ordered from Newark/element14 Canada on February 29th and I haven’t received any email with an updated shipping date either (right now Aug 16th!). My order confirmation number is 167401 (PO: 909448851).

I sent an email showing my interest on getting a couple of raspberries, So far, I have not received a follow up email to place an order. I live in Honduras and it would be exiting to be the first one to have it here. I will provide a US address for the device to be shipped though. Please let me know how to order as son as you can.

I placed my order on April 7th, but according to the online order summary my order won’t ship until the 18th of August. Does the by the end of June ship date for orders placed before April 18th still hold? I haven’t received any email updates.

Got mine ordered back in april 19, and finally received an estimated delivery date: August 16. Can just one day delay be worth of waiting 2 more months than people that just ordered before the 18? I dont think its fair. I hope that element14 or you guys at Raspi org could solve those manufacturing delays, as you can see, only creates bad reputation on an excellent product.

I ordered my RPi from Farnell UK on the 29th February. My order confirmation is: 16470363. I can’t see an estimated delivery date, but I feel that my order may have got lost in the pile. I have recieved Farnell status updates but nothing else about my order for quite a while. Any knowledge of my position would be greatly apreciated. Thanks
Rgds
Zarah

Hello, I’ve ordered Raspberry on the second day from Spain (order 16470086) getting an email confirming the delivery beginning of May. However I’ve been contacted by one of the Farnell’s people asking to send a receipt of the payment. After sending it, the order has been cancelled and a new one (16662184) has been raised. I’ve got confirmation via email that this is the process but now I cannot see the status of the order via the website and the delivery date has been shifted to the end of June… Is there any way to have visibility of the order online?

Hi Jenny,
My order no is 14406336 placed on 04/03/2012 06:46 . I haven’t received any update on my estimated delivery date.. :( and still the order status is in BACK ORDER. I will be happier if I know the delivery date. Thank you.. :)

As with the other guys, I haven’t received a email with delivery info from newark. When I shot them an email, I got the standard end of June message. My order number is 169676. Ordered it on 03/01/2012 from the US.

As with many others, I’ve been patiently waiting, hoping for an email, but nothing as yet. I’m sure everything will finally sort itself out, and eventually you’ll have some free time to yourself! You should all get a medal for the extensive customer support you’ve been putting in, eh?

So, no rush, and if it’s sad news then so be it, but could you let me know of a potential delivery date please? Order confirmation number 16474343, order placed 29/02/2012 15:21.

Dear Jenny, My name is Jay and my Newark / Element 14 PO number is 914844591. The expected ship date was June 29th and now I see that it is August 16th. Is this true? Any way that can be bumped up back to June 29th or earlier? Order date was March 2nd or 4th I think. Thanks.

Is it still possible for you to check an order? I ordered on March 2 and the Order Reference Number is 913490315 .

Thank you for taking the time to put so many of us at ease or out of our misery. My order is/was a birthday gift for my brother in the States. I’m so anxious for a Pi and the order is being shipped to him. How crazy is that?

Hey, I ordered my Raspberry pi on 29 February, 2012 at 7:15 and my order is still labeled as “Back Order”. I’ve emailed Farnell 3 times now asking for an update because I haven’t received any emails since the date of my order. However, Farnell has not responded to any of my emails, and I have checked my spam folder. What is the deal?

I ordered from Newark (US) on March 3 with confirmation #187849 and my order was recently updated with a date of June 18th. Since my order was on the 4th day after launch, i thought that I would get an earlier ship date. I guess being in the USA and having a Newark customer # was a disadvantage. Newark has previously stated that all orders placed before April 18th will be shipped by the end of June at the latest. So if my ship date is in the order of those received, it must mean that everyone that ordered between March 3 and April 18th will be shipped between June 18th and June 30? Doesn’t seem logical.

Is this a hoax ? People are writing about ordering and ordernumbers. I was under the impression I ordered as well, on march 31 at Farnell, issueing my credit-card information and all, and got a confirmation ORP002237. After that: absolute silence. Even no response on my recent mail cautiously informing about the status. Then ordered again, supposing something had gone wrong the first time (there are some rumours of that here); again issueing payment information, again an orderconfirmation: ORP038131. Hopefully I get two RasPi’s any time soon, but I will be glad to have one to start with. So what does this all mean? Is my order being taken seriously and preferably: being processed? I know I have to be patient, but I am getting nervous now…please, some consoling words.

The biggest joke is that we were all encouraged by an entry on May 14 on the raspberrypi home page to post questions about the status of our orders on this thread. “Jenny” would respond, we were assured (why in the world should customers be required to inquire about their individual orders in this public manner instead of using email is a mystery to me). Since then, “Jenny” has not provided a single update.

I find this a bit insulting and I think it would be much more honest for the raspberrypi foundation and its auxiliaries (farnell, newark, RS, etc.) simply to state that they are unable to provide any kind of forecast, that they regard all orders as sheer indications of interest, and that they will ship items to customers who ordered them IF and when they become available.

In case the ‘website’ field doesn’t get auto- incorporated into the post somehow, please see this forum thread Re the US / Farnell Export overcharge issue:http://www.raspberrypi.org/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=23&t=6501
Spent the better part of yesterday on the phone with CS personnel from both Newark and Farnell over in the UK and have a pretty good understanding of what happened / is continuing to happen with these overcharged US-bound orders from Farnell Exports. Long story short, there was never any publicly-issued warning or deterrent – likely by design, in an effort to minimize launch publicity & thus the chances of Farnell’s / Newark’s sites crashing (so much for that) – to let US customers know AT LAUNCH on Feb-29 that they shouldn’t be ordering from any UK-based site but should rather wait for soon-to-come availability on the Newark site. Now highly interested US customers that stayed up late to plow through hours of site traffic & order at 3am on Feb-29 are being rewarded for their enthusiasm for the project with an extra $20 shipping charge for a bare B-model (and yes, it is extra shipping – not tax, as somebody else mentioned – a charge close to ~15GBP, according to the UK CS rep) as compared to people who casually placed a Newark order at lunchtime on Mar-2/3. As confirmed by CS reps on both sides of the pond, while these are related companies getting ‘allotments’ from a single source, their ordering/billing/shipment operations are completely independent and disjointed – no technical integration or order awareness at all – so nothing possible in the arena of “Well, can’t you just transfer my order to Newark & have them ship it for normal charges?…” Obviously, the failure falls on Farnell and/or possibly Newark for not adequately foreseeing this (highly likely, and highly problematic) issue and properly noting it on both sites prior to launch. Unfortunately, the orders are just being pushed right through without a single word, much less acknowledgment of the problem, which is likely about to balloon at an accelerating rate.
While earlier Farnell Exports orders probably were smaller, the follow-up email from the UK CS rep that I mentioned in my post said that the Global order going out last night was indeed for 30,000 units (also known here as the ‘end of May’ shipment, it would seem). Based purely on population comparisons, I would say the odds of a very sizable number of US-based customers (that ordered from Farnell Exports – lets low-ball it at a guess of 1,500) being included in that 30k are quite high. If you think these comment threads are outrageous now, give it till Wed/Thur of this upcoming week when people in the US realize what’s happening on the billing. If even a quarter of them have enough of a problem with this to seek resolution / explanation, this comment-thread issue customer service strategy will be absolutely done.
As mentioned in my forum post and by some people in these comment pages (here & in comments for the May-14 Farnell page/post), the comparison to the RSOnline process and its clear-cut, base-rate, 4.95GBP worldwide shipment pricing makes it pretty clear that this isn’t an issue of “people should have known not to order from the UK/Exports site”.
With that in mind, I would suggest Farnell nip this one in the bud immediately and contact US customers of Farnell Exports from the first couple days after launch with notification of a pending partial refund somewhere in the area of $17-$20. They can take a month and maybe even two to sort it out if need be, to get a fair policy in place for determining the amount – I don’t need that $20 to eat today… maybe more like to go towards next month’s train pass – but the important thing is to address it and stop this silence / phantom charge-&-shipment strategy with fingers crossed that nobody will care. Trust me – they will care.